Tuesday, April 15, 2008

This is a two-month-old's essay on the joys of screaming one's head off:

"Don't get me wrong—I like squirming, drooling, and sporadically attempting to focus on colors and shapes as much as the next guy. But of all the various activities one can choose to pursue in life, crying is tops as far as I'm concerned. ... What you want, I've found, is to pitch your voice at about the decibel level of your standard jet engine and then hold it as long as possible before taking in air. That's the sweet spot right there. That's the ideal volume for a good cry—the kind of crying that isn't so much melancholy or sorrowful as it is a full-throttle roar of earsplitting shrillness. It's so easy. Getting started can be as simple as being startled by your own hand. ...

"Take my parents, for example. If it wasn't for my tireless efforts, they'd sleep through the night! Can you believe it? ... Yet they hardly ever cry, and when they do, it's usually softly, in the middle of the night, and exhausted-sounding. What happened to their lust for life? Don't they realize that every moment they waste sleeping, fiddling with the car seat, or holding picture books in front of my face is precious time they could be screaming their heads off? ... They must've been young once. Surely they can still remember the good times they had, splitting the very air with sonic knives of nigh-unendurable intensity. I would hate to think that someday I might be so jaded and cynical as to turn my back on wriggling and panting for breath, using every ounce of my being to emit a general, undifferentiated distress signal to all within earshot."

Some days you just need some sarcastic baby humor, and I think Tax Day is one of them.

In good tax-related news, we found out that having Mikko made us poor, what with the not working as much this past year due to time off for his birth, time off for relatives visiting, time off for visiting relatives, and just general inability to focus and be effective -- so poor, in fact, that we're getting a huuuge refund! And it's all thanks to our little tax deduction, because our dependent-related exemptions and credits pushed us over the edge. We're actually getting more back from the IRS than we've spent on him. Snap!

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Riding the rails with my husband, Crackerdog Sam, and our hobo kids, Mikko Lint Picker (born June 2007), Alrik Irontrousers (born May 2011), and Karsten (born October 2014). Trying every day to parent intentionally and with grace.